What a puzzle the owls are. Today I finished framing the last two owls and now it’s time to put them together in a way that creates a quilt.
I began the work of moving the owls around trying to find the right place for each one. I’m still in that process. But tomorrow my day is clear so I hope to get to my studio early and begin solving the puzzle.
I will, of course, ask the Spirit Owl for her help.
Some of the people who come to my art class at The Mansion are regulars. I can always count on them being there. But no one has come to my classes as consistently and for as long as Claudia.
I’ve known Claudia for at least six years, and I’ve seen her art change in that time. It was last month that I noticed how adept she is at creating abstract art.
She seems to have an innate understanding of line, shape and color.
Claudia seems less intimidated by working abstractly, more certain of what she is doing. She doesn’t hesitate the way I’ve seen her do when making representational drawings. In the past years I’ve seen her drawing get smaller and smaller on the page.
But when working abstractly, her intuition kicks in and she cares less about the instructions I’m giving and lets her work go in the direction she wants to take it. It looks to me like she enters that creative zone where the work takes over and tells the artist what to do.
The results are expressive, beautifully composed and confident.
I’ve always known that Claudia was creative, but now I see the artist in her. She isn’t just coloring or copying, she’s creating her own art and evolving as an artist.
Jon was there today taking pictures and observing the class. You can see his photos and read about it on his blog. Just click here.
Just back from a walk in the woods, I called the dogs in from the barnyard and closed the gate. I was ready to get warm, but as I walked back to the house, I heard the chimes.
I stopped to look at the wind chime made from a bicycle wheel, a frying pan and parts of a milking machine.
It made the slightest sound, just a tinkle really, the old teat cups just glancing the frying pan one at a time, at if they were taking turns.
The dried hydrangea flowers on the bush next to the wind chime didn’t flutter, the branches of the lilac were still. So what was making the wind chime sing?
“Hi Ed” I said, as I always do when the chimes ping. But I knew it was more than just hello.
The past few days, since the snow, I’ve been taking pictures of Eds sculpture that we have on the farm. I’ve been meaning to post them but haven’t yet.
I can take a hint.
So here they are, not all of them, but the ones I got good pictures of so far.
“What’s the need of visiting far-off mountains and bogs if a half hours walk will carry me into such wildness and novelty” Hens David Thoreau
I didn’t think about why I was slipping and sliding so much until I went for a walk with my friend Margaret and saw how steady she was on her feet.
My boots had worn out so gradually, I didn’t know it had happened.
Margaret was my research for choosing to get a pair of Muck Boots. She swears by them for keeping her feet warm, having great traction and lasting years.
So yesterday Jon and I went boot shopping.
I found out it’s not the best time to buy boots, many are already sold out. The first shop I went to didn’t have the one boot I was interested in my size. I gave up looking when the sales person tired to sell me something I’d already let her know I wasn’t interested in.
Tractor Supply was our next stop and although the shelves were mostly empty of boots, there was one pair of Muck Boots in my size left. I knew they mine as soon as I tried them on.
When we got home I went right out for a walk in the woods. I couldn’t believe how much easier it was for me to walk in the snow. It made me aware that I’d been taking shorter walks because it had become harder to walk in the snow.
Now I can’t wait to get back out there.
The only shopping I really enjoy is in thrift stores. And shopping for shoes always makes me nervous. In the past I’ve often had shoes that feel like they fit me when I first try them on but after I wear them a few times I realize they are either too big or too small.
The last pair of boots I bought for myself were hiking boots. I got them online and they never fit me right. I gave them away a year later.
Since then I have given up on the notion that I’m going to need hiking boots. I don’t hike anymore. Now I go walking in the woods. And almost always in the woods within walking distance from the farm.
So I’m grateful to have my new pair of Muck Boots. After wearing them for two days doing chores around the farm and walking in the woods, I know they are just right for me.
Any birds? Jon texted. Not now, I texted back, I’ll let you know when
The problem is that when the birds come, by the time Jon gets to my studio they have either left or he scares them away by opening my studio door.
They do of course come back again, but then Jon has to wait around while I’m working and my work tables are in front of the windows where the bird feeder is.
One day he sat in my studio taking pictures of the birds when I wasn’t there. There was something sweet about that, about him doing his working in my studio. It’s never happened before.
But mostly I’m working when the birds are there.
So yesterday I bought a long narrow bird feeder and told Jon I’d hang it in the south facing living room window. That way, he could set up his tripod by the window, and sit comfortably in a chair waiting for the birds to come.
I always think of the birds at my feeder as Winter’s Flowers.
They bring color and life to the landscape out my studio window when the tress, grasses and flowers are resting.
In a way it works the same as Jon’s raised flower beds.
I was going to hang the feeder today, but if it doesn’t warm up I’ll wait until tomorrow. I’ll take the screen off the storm window and clean the windows so Jon will have a clear view. I’ll hang suet also, to attract the woodpeckers and maybe that Northern Flicker that comes to my feeder.
One of the things that I’ve learned about creativity is that there is always another idea. But I have act on them. It’s only when I bring an idea into the physical world that it leads to another and another.
When Jon was concerned at the end of the summer that he wouldn’t be able to take pictures of his flowers anymore (He loves so much sharing them with the people on his blog and they love seeing them), I knew he’d come up with his own “winter flower”.
Because one of the things I’ve loved about Jon, from the time I first met him, was that he always has another creative idea.
And he’s done it again, this time with the birds right outside the window.
It was below zero when I went out to feed the animals this morning. Fanny and Lulu’s whiskers were beaded with ice, but their shaggy coats were already warm from the sun.
These coldest of days come with bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine.
I sold half of the Zip Notecards in the first week, thanks to everyone who bought them. Jon and I will be using some to send as Thank you cards but I still have some available.
Each pack has six 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 cards. There are two of each image of Zip in each pack. Jon and I chose the best photos of Zip that we’ve been taking since he came to live on the farm.
Each pack of Zip cards is $25 + $5 shipping. You can buy them in my Etsy Shop, just click here. Or you can email me at [email protected]. I take checks, PayPal and Venmo.
Work on my Spirit Owl quilt hummed along today. I could do no wrong as each piece of fabric fell into place.
I let go of thinking and let feeling take over. I looked softly from the corner of my eye and didn’t linegr or second guess.
The owls that I cut from the fabric yesterday found their way in the quiet and seclusion of their own woods.
I have two more owls to work on then I’ll figure out what to do next.
I pull out the damper and open the door. Inside the wood stove is a thick bed of hot black coals. Soon, with the influx of air, they will be glowing a deep orange. This time of year it’s easy to get the wood stoves going in the morning.
I lay one small log across the front of the stove and lean the ends of three more on it. I close the door but keep the damper open. By the time I do the same in the stove in the dining room and let the dogs in, both wood stoves will be clicking and ticking with the warmth of flames wrapping themselves around the logs.
This is one of the ways I know we are in the deep of winter.
Another is that I’ve uncovered the initials “JV” painted in red on the woodshed wall. When the initials are revealed it’s because we’ve used up three of the seven cords of wood.
JV took care in painting their initials even adding serifs to the “V”. “DV” is scratched into the door of the barn. Seeing them always makes me wonder who lived in the house before Florence and Harold who were here for 80 years before us.
I think about going to the county records and looking it up. Finding out who JV and DV were. But I doubt I ever will. Jon and I are part of the farm’s history now. Makes me want to carve my initials in the wood paneling of my studio.
This time of year it only takes one day of below zero temperatures to make 20 degrees feel warm.
Yesterday morning when it was below zero I put off mucking out the barn till the afternoon. It was ten degrees when I fed the animals this morning and I didn’t think twice about taking off my gloves and tying two pieces of blue twine onto the gate post.
Into the twine I tied a sprig of feathers I found in the barn.
Its the first evidence I’ve seen of Zip catching a bird. It’s not PC to admit that Zip has gotten at least one bird. We know he scared the pigeons away, but these feathers don’t look like they came from a pigeon.
They’re a shinny black bustle tipped with tan. I don’t know who they came from, but as beautiful as they are I imagine they were more so on the bird.
I didn’t like finding the feathers, but as I wove them into the twine, I thought at least it was honest. That blue and orange twine, the knots and the things in them, that’s a record of life on the farm this winter.
And Wednesday, when I left for my Bellydancing class, it was the first time since December that I couldn’t close the door to the chicken coop. Because it was still light out, the hens were huddled under the bird feeder, scratching at the seeds that fell into the snow.
In ancient Ireland February 1st is known as Imbolc, the first day of spring.
I get that. Longer days, little more than half the wood left and tying another baling twine on the gatepost every other day.
The deepest days of winter means we’re half way though.
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